More on Mayors against guns
You know, that group that Knoxville Mayor Bill Haslam is a part of:
The Mayors Against Guns further claim that they “respect the rights of law abiding citizens to own guns.” No they don’t.
Let’s face it. The City of New York has done just about everything it can do in the form of imposing strict gun control. The only thing Mayor Bloomberg can do to prove his anti-gun worthiness is try to enforce gun control in other cities. Do you think the people of Atlanta, Georgia appreciate Mayor Bloomberg’s influence on their gun laws?
As you peruse through the rest of the Mayors Against Guns website, you will see all the telltale signs of an anti-gun mentality. One example is the number of people killed by firearms each year in America: 30,000. The website won’t tell you that the number of lives saved by firearms each year in America is over TWO MILLION. The website also lists various anti-gun legislation but no legislation that supports concealed carry or Stand Your Ground laws.
If Mayor Bloomberg and other mayors across the country were serious about reducing crime, they’d be looking at the single common denominator in all crimes: Criminals. We know that approximately 60-70% of serious offenders are rearrested within 3 years of release from prison. Enacting more laws for people who already disobey the law is absurd. You can’t reduce crime by keeping guns “off the street”. You have to keep criminals off the street.
Rather than focus on the cause of crime, however, anti-gun mayors prefer to focus on you, the law abiding citizen. Their goal is to enact more laws that make it more difficult for you to own and possess firearms. Anti-gun mayors from New York and Los Angeles are going to show mayors in Anchorage, Denver, and Providence how it’s done.
October 13th, 2006 at 10:06 am
I haven’t heard that 2,000,000 number before. Anyone have a link to stats on that?
October 13th, 2006 at 10:09 am
I think the 2M is the John Lott number, which is questionable. The Justice department puts it at about 750K to 1.3M. A florida study put it at like 900K to 1.5M.
October 13th, 2006 at 10:40 am
But forget all that 750k-2M stuff … as far as I’m concerned, firearms only need to be used defensively 30,000 times a year in order to cancel out that “guns are just used for killing” nonsense. I’ll give them the biggest benefit of the doubt ever and throw out the 1-2M estimates and peg it at 30,000. I’m comfortable with that.
And as I always like to clarify when the 30,000 killed with guns every year number is mentioned: Over half of those deaths—17k—are SUICIDES. And gun availability only dictates the method used to kill oneself, it has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on overall suicide RATES. When firearms are unavailable, there is a complete substitution of other means.
October 13th, 2006 at 1:10 pm
I have never bought the 2,000,000 number.
Another number which is impossible to quantify, but nonetheless important, is the feeling of personal safety and security that carrying a firearm can provide.
Knowing I can respond to a problem makes me feel good, irrespective of whether I have to press a gun into service, which I hope never happens.
October 13th, 2006 at 4:23 pm
but, but, but , if they save just one life it is worth it! right? Isn’t that what they tell us?